A little more progress

Saturday night I walked in our local "Relay for Life" race for the cure. The people who were in charge of the program put on a very moving power point presentation. I felt very honored to be a part of this team. Cancer touches a lot of lives, and you never know who will be struck next,so please schedule a yearly checkup. I was also thankful it was 75 degrees at 11pm about 40 degrees higher than last year when I participated.

The next picture I wanted to share is of our pond. Can you see the 2 eggs on the nest? When we built our pond DH had them put in an "island" so the girls could jump off the dock and swim to the "island" as they called it. Well, erosion has worn away most of it now, but in its day it had enough room that ten girls could stand on it. They even wanted to camp on it. lol! Times have changed. Now the geese are nesting around the pond. Looks like we will have some goslings soon.

I made a little more progress on the CHS stocking. I also started Earth Sampler by The Primitive Needle. I thought it would be a fast stitch but it has a lot of color changes, so it didn't go as fast as I hoped. I want to have it finished by Sunday. Time will tell.

Lastly, I said I had a polio shot which was incorrect. It was a small pox shot that left that lovely scar. In class, we were talking about the iron lung and polio and I was running that conversation through my head as I was typing. Sorry about that.

It was interesting to hear your comments, and you remember the same experiences. I am anxious to see what grade I received on my paper. Vonna commented on kids not working today. You have to wonder what our next generation will bring.

It will be May soon, and in Indiana that means Indy 500. My daughter has worked as an ambassador at the track for the pass few years. She operates the elevator where the VIP's are escorted upstairs to the suites. She has met McDreamy & McSteamy, Paul Neuman(although she didn't have a clue who he was) just some old man with beautiful blue eyes. I immediately had her watch "The Sting". lol! Gene Simmons from Kiss, Ray Liotta, Danica Patrick & Helio to name a few. I call her to talk about(drill her) who she met that day. I can't wait to see who she meets this year.


Until next time, thanks for stopping by and leaving comments.

A very little progress

I can't believe it's Thursday already. Time to post progress on my CHS stocking. I am almost embarrassed by my lack of stitching this week.

I had to write a paper on,"Were we better off in 1920 rather than 1980?" Since I was born in the early 60's, twenty-five years earlier than my fellow students. I have a little more first hand experience than they do. I have seen plenty of changes so far in my lifetime. My girls have not had the pleasure of listening to a record player or 8-track tape. They never talked on a telephone party line,watched a black/white TV,or detasseled corn for a summer job. Company computers use to take up a whole room, you could not afford to buy a personal computer and car phones came in a portable box. Boy, do I feel old!

Last week one of the students asked the professor if he had one of those ugly polio marks on his arm. He replied he was not old enough to have a mark then he looked at me. Speaking before thinking, I said I do have one, but is not on my arm. That was probably TMI because I heard a few snickers. Then I could hear them gossiping in the background, "How old is she anyway?" lol!!!! Then I felt really old. I knew I should have taken this class online.

It is mushroom season in Indiana. It is quite the contest with the men around here on who can find the most and earns bragging rights for the next year. You can almost smell the testosterone. Mushrooms sell for $18 a pound. Ridiculous! I would rather have shrimp or lobster or both. My dh loves when mushroom season rolls around. Not me, I like to eat them but I do not like to hunt them. It seems like I come home with more than mushrooms(ie-poison ivy or ticks). No thank you. This weekend there will be a festival at Mansfield. They have a contest on who brings in the most or the biggest. Vendors come to sell a few crafts and antiques. I like to go just to walk around and enjoy the day.
Thanks for visiting and leaving comments.

A Virtuous Woman

I am doing a CHS stocking SAL with Annemarie at Orts & Ends and Barbara at Mainely Stitching. No deadlines, no pressure, I just have to post every Thursday my progress. Two stitches count as progress, yeah!

I received this stocking as a gift and I hated not working on it when quite a bit of money was spent on something I had to have. So after reading Ort & Ends blog, I emailed Annemarie to ask her if I could join in the fun.

I am stitching the stocking on 36ct. Pearled Barley with NPI. Please check back next Thursday, for more progress. I need to be kept on task until completed. Sometimes I feel like I have ADD and can be easily distracted by a new design. Know what I mean?

I thought I would share one of the covered bridges of Putnam County. I have four covered bridges with 15 minutes of my house. There use to be quite a few more in this area but they were lost to floods or arson. They did come in handy during the buggy wagon era. People use to pull into them to get out of the weather.

I also thought I would share with you an old building on the DePauw Campus in Greencastle. It is one of the those building that you drive by and don't notice any more. Although I don't know how, it looks so stately. (I hate it when the pictures post out of order.) Thanks for stopping by and leaving comments.

Peyton

I don't know if you follow football or not. I certainly wouldn't call myself a football fan. I listen to the Colts play on Sunday or Monday nights but only if I am not busy doing something else. My world does not revolve sports of any type. But I did go the grand opening of the new Lucas Oil Stadium. I thought it might be the only time I would get to be inside the locker room or on the field for that matter, or sit in the swanky suites of stadium.

My boss called me today at 12:00 and told me to lock the door and report out at the middle school. Being the model employee and always doing what I am told I did. They were having a surprise visitor.

The surprise visitor turned out to be Peyton Manning. He talked about following your dreams and don't let anyone stand in the way of your goals. (Same speech I gave last semester in my class & to my girls growing up.) Peyton talked about comittment & practicing hard, following through with your goals. He also mentioned his dogs (see previous post, he must have watched B.Stein too). He said when he wanted to complain to someone, he complained to his two dogs- Colt & Receiver(?). He also took out his linesmen every week to dinner. He wanted to keep on their good side, so they would protect him every week.

I was excited to hear him speak. He is admired and a great asset to Indianapolis. I can also tell my grandkids, how I chased Peyton out of the building to get his autograph.

On the Rocks

I haven't gotten as far as I would have liked on CHS Shores. I made it to the rocks. There was a little frog gigging going on at my house. It seems I have a little trouble counting to 92. Someone mentioned doing half stitches every ten stitches but I was to far in to the block when I heard that tip. But believe me, I won't forget that tip on the next block.

Then Friday night I started reading Historian. I couldn't put it down. I am really going to have to invest in audio tapes, that would be the best solution. When I am reading this book, I have the sensation of wanting to looking over my shoulder.

Saturday morning, I got up bright an early to work on CHS Mary Margaret. I made a little progress on her. Obviously, I didn't warn off the frogs good enough Thursday. They reappeared on Sunday, and I had to have another gigging session. I stitched the q three lines to high and it had to be frogged out. Megan has asked me when I was going to stitch her mouth. Has anyone stitched a smile on the girl's face?

Do you watch Sunday Morning on CBS? This morning they had an episode with Ben Stein and dogs. How you should get a dog when you get a divorce, lose you job or spouse. They don't judge you if you don't wear the latest fashion, or care how much money you make or where you work or how much money you lost in your 401K. They love you for who you are. They are great companions.

When my girls went off to college it was very quite at my house. You would think coming home to a quite house might be nice but after 30 minutes it was too quite. I was use to the hub bub of going seven days a week. Girls coming and going, games to played or dresses to buy. So I have two small dogs-Tuffy & Sidney. They are always glad to see me, even if I am gone 10 minutes or all day. They are interested in what I have to say or at least pretend to be interested. lol! They make me laugh at the antics, running through the house, or stealing each other's bone. Tuffy & Sid don't complain that I have watched Twilight more times than they can count.

Here is a picture of Tuffy. Tuffy seems to be camera shy. He didn't like it when I was trying to take his picture. I will get a picture of Sidney later and show you what a pretty girl she is.

Thanks for stopping by & leaving comments!

Sampler Wall

I thought I would share my sampler wall today. I have been busy framing some of my samplers. I hated stuffing them in the drawer after I finished them. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with them, so I grouped these together. I have a few others hanging through out the house.

I don't expect Better Homes and Gardens to be calling me anytime soon for a photo shoot. In fact, I am sure HGTV would be having nightmares on my decorating style. But it is my house and I love it. Now, I am not sure where I am going to hang Dutch Beauty, Mary Allen, Frances Eden or And They Sinned, etc. First I have to finish them.

I hope you enjoy looking at them. The three on the top row are from the 1990's. I used to visit a LNS in Crawfordsville. It is now closed and has been for a long time, but that is where I discovered my love for samplers. After it closed, the closes LNS was at the north side of Indianapolis, to far to drive with two small girls. A few years ago, I rediscovered cross stitch on the Internet and my passion for stitching returned with a vengeance.

I have a few other pictures to share. I live on a dangerous ninety degree curve, although it is marked people still miss the corner. I have had cars run into the trees & cars in the pond. One car caught on fire. No one has seriously been injured yet. We have asked the county to put up a guard rail. They came and put up four reflector post, that hasn't helped. The other night one of the neighborhood girl missed the corner and came close to being in the pond. The accidents usually happen in threes, so I will be expecting two more pretty soon. The second picture is from my neighbor's yard. Their pond is in the foreground and ours is in the background. She has a better view of my pond than I do.

Two girls

Today was a special day for my daughter. My DH & I are so proud of her. She will be graduating from college in a few short weeks at the top of her class. I wish I would have taken a tape recorder to all her awards programs. All of her professors have bragged to me about her accomplishments. What a well rounded outstanding student she is. It is alway wonderful to hear you have a great kid, makes me think I did something right in my parenting skills.
Dr. DeGaris is head of the sport management program at the college and presented one of her awards to her today. He related Megan's accomplishments as her being the No.#1 draft pick of 2009. My dh being a sports fanatic thought this was great. Here she with all her hardware. One award was for top GPA in the business department and the other one was outstanding leadership in the undergraduate business program. Congratulations, Megan!


I did manage to stitch on CHS Mary Margaret. I wanted to share with you my progress. It isn't much but I have been playing catch up at work. Payroll had to be processed, claim checks had to be mailed not mention other daily task that have to be done yada, yada, yada. Anyhoo, I am using 32ct. Autumn Gold with NPI, this picture does not show the true color of the fabric. I do have Adam's head done on the A &E. I will post a picture of it later.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving comments.

Spring Break

Mackenzie and I headed south for Spring Break. My other daughter got a better offer and went to Florida. We decided to go back to the Pigeon Forge area and the Biltmore. I heart the Biltmore. Actually, I think I lived there in another life probably as a housemaid, but hey I still lived there.
The Biltmore wasn't too busy this time of year. If you have never been to the Biltmore you need to go if you enjoy history. They will be opening more of the Biltmore to the public in April. It just amazes me they had electricity and running water back in the late 1800's. The priceless heirlooms dating from the 1500's. Their grounds are so beautiful. It is so nice to see color starting to bloom. Indiana is pretty drab right now. Daffodils & dogwoods are blooming. I really don't like driving through the mountain interstate with the semis. Last time I came to this area it was raining, some people have no fear of driving the mountain passes at 65 mph with rain but I do. It was a fun time.

We also hit the outlet strip mall. I found a cool monogram picture at Kirlands. They didn't have a P but they did have a T for Tanya so I am not sure how my DH will feel about that when I hang it. He probably won't even notice. (I hope) Naturalizer store was having some great deals. Who can pass up $12 shoes that were $60? I also went to Dixie Darlin cross stitch store. She is open late on Thursday nights. I wish I would have taken a picture of the inside of her shop. She is very friendly and helpful. If you are ever in this area you won't be sorry you stopped. I had to do my part for the economy and picked a few things. I saw World's Above design on Sharon Stitches blog and had to get it. Then I picked up Hillside Samplings Virtue Sampler and a Notforgotten My Sampler House pattern. She had a model of the Virtue Sampler and I passed over it when looking at patterns but when I was looking at the models it caught my eye. We are heading home today after hitting a few antique shops.

Edit-Sorry when I posted this entry at the hotel room, it showed the picture of my newly acquired stash but when I hit the post button it dropped the picture. And I wish I would have asked the antique shop owner if I could have taken a picture of his folk art life-size wood carved anatomically correct mermaid. I thought it was cool and would look really neat out by the pond. Unfortunately, it was $1200 so my pocketbook said no.

Making memories

I thought I would share with you a picture of a t-shirt quilt my daughter just made. We saw one of these at a graduation party and thought it was a cool way to use up t-shirts.
Seems like every time you turn around in high school or college either you have to buy a t-shirt for a sporting or club event. Any way, it makes a nice memory quilt instead of the t-shirts crammed in the drawers. I am very proud that my daughter likes to sew. In today's fast paced world it almost seems like a lost art. I just helped with the binding and she did everything else. Please excuse the wrinkles and shadows.

Spring Forward

Today I lost an hour of stitching due to the springing forward in time. I am participating in a SAL on CHS Shores, Adam & Eve and Mary Margaret. I only have a box done on Shores so I won't bother with posting a black box. I was able to make a little more progress on A & E, a couple of apples, a squirrel and the start of Adam's head. Since I am on Spring Break this week, I hope to get a lot more stitching done.

The other picture is the location of my second temporary job. It is at an old school house probably build around the late 1800's or early 1900's. The west entrance is marked girls and the east entrance boys. I find the architecture quite interesting. What made them separate the boys from the girls? What were the rules? I report to this job in the evening. The first week I was working there, 3 people informed me of their thoughts of creepy building after dark. I really hadn't given much thought to the building being creepy just old. It does a lot of banging, knocking and drafty. I don't think they will be calling in Ghost Hunters anytime soon since I am usually the only there until 10 or later. I will admit there has been a time or two a cold chill has ran up my back but nothing to make me run screaming from the building. And I have learned to use my Ipod to drown any background noise.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

Have you ever heard a phrase and you can't get it out of your head? That is what has happened to me. I watched "21" Friday night and have been repeating Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner over and over again, like a song. I really enjoyed the movie but geez! I also watched "Changeling" and "Body of Lies". "Changeling" is not an uplifting movie. So be warned.

I am also posting two WIP's although some might consider them UFO's. I started working on the Loose Feather BBD and was making great progress, then a I had an unexpected turn. Without going into details - I was offered a temporary second job to straighten out an accounting nightmare. So I am working two jobs and going to night school. I am not busy at all. I am so close to being finished with the BBD. The accounting job just needs to be posted.

The ATS, I can't remember why I put it away. I was pass the cloud heading for the second page so I don't know what happened. Anyway, I pulled it out over the weekend and started working on it again. So here are the pictures.

Diary of a Mad Woman

Ring, Ring I was calling my DH on my way home wanting to know if pizza was okay for dinner.
He said sure but don't get a big one. I thought that was strange so I asked why not. Well, I am in Iowa, 8 hours away and he was still heading west. He was with a buddy and they were 4-H pig shopping. Can you believe this??? I don't know when he was going to call me and let me know he wasn't coming home for dinner. My blood pressure started to raise. Then I thought, hey my girls aren't coming home this weekend, I don't have to cook for anyone, no picking up after anyone. My grandfather was a fulled blooded American Indian. Indians don't get mad we get even. On Saturday, that's what I did. I purchased some new release and other ones I have been wanting for a while.

A New Beginning

I have wanted to start blogging for a while but I always came up with a million excuses, so here I am taking the plunge. This is a recent finish, by one of my favorite designers- Carriage House Samplings. It is stitched on 32 count neutral fiber with DMC floss. Thanks for stopping in.